Mortality
by At A Venture
Summary: An exercise in Point of View. Conclusions to "Rupture."
1. Chapter 1

_A/N: There were so many "requests" for a conclusion to "Rupture" that I've decided to add a few POV exercises, in order to settle on an ending. Hopefully it doesn't end up too sappy! _

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**Mortality**

_Bill_

The vehicle rolled to a stop in the lot, and I leapt from the passenger seat. Amelia and Sam turned to watch me go before Sam started the engine again. I darted into the emergency reception center, running past teal green chairs filled with sleeping family members, bleeding or wounded patients, the elderly and the young. I stopped at Eric's shoulder. His eyes turned to regard me slowly, the pupils small and black. His expression was cold and calculating and absent of emotion. Whatever he was thinking, if anything at all, it was pushed down so deep within him that it was undetectable. His flesh smelled only vaguely of a long-since subdued rage, an aroma of smoldering flesh and coagulated blood. His fangs were exposed, and they peeked out between his slightly parted lips.

"Eric," I grunted, keeping my eyes on his. It was protocol to keep my gaze lowered, to see only the white-blond eyelashes that lined his lower eyelid, but I needed him to see my fury. "We must speak."

The Viking turned on his heel and walked slowly outside, his gait unhurried, measured. I followed stiffly at his side, but I could not maintain that same demeanor. My cool skin was hot with anger, and I ached to question him, to find out why we had come to this place. We stood together under the beacon of a white street lamp, in front of a concrete column. His body was still where mine popped and crackled like a log on fire. He did not move nor speak.

How could he be so calm? How was he not seething with the murderous rage I knew him to be capable of?

"Sookie," I groaned with an ache that filled my entire body.

"She is in critical condition," he said, sounding out the harsh words as though he had not spoken them before. His voice was clipped.

"What does that mean?" I hissed at him.

"They do not know if she will live." There was no strain in his voice. It was as though he had already accepted her fate.

"Did you feed her?" I balked. How could he just let her die?

"She refused me."

"What do you mean she refused you?! I have seen my… I have seen Sookie near death! If she will not take it willingly, you force her! We can't let her die when it is within our capacity to save her!"

"I will not force myself upon her, William Compton." He stared at me, and his deep blue eyes were like ice. "And neither will you."

My hand shot out before I could think to control it. It smashed a hole in the concrete behind him. He made no move to step aside, nor shield his self from my blow. I was barely worthy of status as a foe to the Viking.

I owe him my fidelity.

"I won't let her die!" I growled, feeling a new sense of urgency surge within me. I couldn't let her die.

"Everyone dies, Bill." Eric said simply.

Lord preserve me, I wanted to kill him.

I walked back into the reception area and stalked over to the front desk. A small woman, long in years, lifted her eyes to me. Her mouth was a straight line, probably painted a shimmering pink at the beginning of her shift. She had only traces of the color now, smeared into the wrinkles of her lips.

"Where is Sookie Stackhouse?" I spat, trying to contain my temper without success. If Eric would not feed her, I would. I would accept the consequences of my actions later, but I would not let her die.

"She cannot have visitors right now, sir." The woman frowned.

"Take me to her!" I roared, pounding my hand on her desk. A jar of pencils fell over and rolled onto the floor. The receptionist did not falter in my gaze.

"I understand that you are worried, sir. She cannot take visitors at this time. Miss Stackhouse is in critical condition. She is unstable. Any visitation might be damaging to her current state."

I snarled at her and stepped back from the desk with a measure of strength I did not know I had. Pam stood near me, her head cocked to one side. She seemed to want to laugh, but kept her ill-timed humor in check.

"You love her so deeply," Pam said thoughtfully. "But she is only a human. Mortals die, Bill."

"Don't," I muttered, hanging my head to disengage from her.

"If you turned her, she would be yours forever." Pam shrugged. "But she would never forgive you. Of course, with things the way they are, you couldn't do much worse."


	2. Chapter 2

**Mortality**

_Pam_

Okay, I know I said I could see what all the fuss was over her, but this is just…sad. Look at him over there, sitting, staring at the wall, looking down at his hands. His thoughts are going a mile a minute, wondering if he should have done more for her, wondering if he should force his blood down her throat, wondering if he should turn her.

She's only a human.

Certainly, she is a beautiful human. The coils of wavy wheat-gold hair that fall around her shoulders, and the pretty pink lips that she paints with red rouge…my, my, she is a pretty girl. I'm particularly impressed by the natural curve of her hips. So few women these days can abide a rounded bottom, but Sookie is who she is. She has a wonderful personality, so sweet-tempered and yet fiery. She certainly does not take orders, and I can appreciate that.

Look at him. My maker, my master, my father, and my savior, so restless with the thoughts of a human woman. What a fool! He should just push past these incessant vermin, invade her room, and turn her! Rescue her from this dull existence of bar-tending and house-cleaning. It's not like she would have a family that missed her! She has nothing to tie her to the mortal realm! I can only imagine how powerful she would be, a telepathic vampire.

Oh how I could tease him. It's almost worth the punishment. Eric the Northman, humbled by a mere mortal, enchanted by her independent spirit. Disgusting.

I lifted my eyes to Bill Compton, so full of emotion, anger and relentless frustration. He had always been so calm before, so cut off from the human world. Now…now he was as unbridled as a cat in heat. His cool skin stank of conflicted emotions, love and despair. I swear he felt more love for Sookie than his dead heart knew what to do with. I smiled at him, turning my head to gaze at his snarling mouth, his mutinous temper.

"You love her so deeply," I smiled, giving thought to the notion. "But she is only a human. Mortals die, Bill."

"Don't," he grunted at me, looking away.

"If you turned her, she would be yours forever." I shrugged. "But she would never forgive you. Of course, with things the way they are, you couldn't do much worse."

He growled before slouching into a chair to wring his hands and stare at the berber carpeting.

I could turn her, and end their suffering. I could hover over her until only the tiniest spark of life remained. Sookie had tasted the blood of a few tasty men, but I had never watched her eat willingly from me. It seemed to be the kind of activity that changed the cold hearts of vampires, transforming them from ruthless killers to begging lovers. I could keep her as my pet, cherish and adore her for a few years before letting her go to whichever man she chose. Or both. I could see her pressed between them, fondling one or the other as her whims suited her.

She could be a powerful child.

I eyed the swinging hospital doors.


	3. Chapter 3

_A/N: I honestly wasn't sure how I wanted to end this piece. I considered a handful of different endings. I wanted to try out Bill's reaction, and I wanted to give Pam's voice a try, but when it comes down to it, I knew Eric had to weigh in on Sookie's fate. _

_None of these, and all of these are the end of the story.  
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**Mortality**

_Eric_

I could not sleep. The night shift administrator, Gladys, led me, and Bill and Pam, down a long hall to a vampire-secure daytime reception area. There were no windows in the room, and a few spare beds lined the walls. There were other vampires, some that I recognized and others that I did not, and they had all settled in for the dawn. I couldn't sleep with them.

I am old. I can stay awake.

At dawn, the staff changed. New nurses filtered into the empty hallways with their banks of blinding fluorescent lights. Physicians stumbled around on wobbling legs, tired from all night shifts. I slipped easily into her isolated room. I shut the door and stood there in the darkness, penetrated only by the incessant beating of a heart monitor, the blinking of small colored lights.

Her skin was still bare, to the waist. The tube of plastic emerged from her left side and sloped down the side of the gurney where it attached to a pump. Smaller clear tubes had been inserted into her nostrils to push oxygen through her body. Breathing looked difficult, if that difficulty could be measured in the way her chest rose and fell again.

I could feel her pain. It sat in my chest like a tumor.

I reached out and touched her breast, my hand cupping the place where her heart lie cradled in a fluid-filled cavity. Each beat was slow and deliberate, as measured as my outward emotional response. Her body would not admit to weakness. I could understand that.

Sookie was not weak.

But she could not hold out forever, not like this.

Never removing my hand from her heart, I reached up and touched the switch that controlled the oxygen flowing into my lover's body. What color remained in her, however little there was, disappeared from her face. Her chest did not rise again. She did not attempt another staggering, painful breath.

Her sweet red lips were chapped and colorless.

Her heart beat slowed.

Her pain receded.

The medical team rushed in and pushed me from the room. A few of them waved their arms at me as though I were an errant flea. I was only a vampire after all. I had not loved the woman who had died in my arms. I hadn't saved her. Perhaps I didn't care enough.

I walked down the hall with a song stuck in my head, suddenly and mysteriously, as such things tend to be. As most things are.

_He shot me down. Bang bang. I hit the ground. Bang bang. That awful sound. Bang bang. _

_My baby shot me down._

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**Mortality**

_Eric_

I could not sleep, though it was near dawn. I watched as my younger companions slid wearily between the scratchy white sheets on their individual gurneys. Pam looked over at me with a flicker of mischief in her eyes. Bill appeared full of anger and sorrow, his face a poorly painted canvas of emotion. He was young yet, and could not keep such thoughts in check. If he lived long enough, he would learn to remain invulnerable.

Or, at least, to appear that way.

I walked back down the hall from whence we'd come. The shift change had begun. Weary night staff shuffled down the hallways, concerned only with how much sleep they could manage to get before the next work day began. Fresh staff roamed the halls slowly and quietly, still groggy and gloomy and unprepared for the day ahead.

I slipped easily into the isolated room in which my lover lay.

She had not opened her eyes in hours, and a dread filled me that I could not push behind the emotionless mask I had carefully crafted over hundreds of years. If I never saw those sweet but fierce eyes again, could I live with myself? Would I not dream of them forever? In a thousand years, I had never met a woman quite like Sookie Stackhouse. She shone like a beacon in a gray and impenetrable night.

I could not face the next thousand years without her.

As I stood over her, my hand dipped down to rest upon her breast, over the place where her carefully beating heart trembled in an ocean of blood. She was still stripped to the waist, with a plastic tube jutting from her left side, sucking fluid from her chest. Smaller tubes had been inserted into her nostrils to assist in her breathing, a task that caused her great pain and drained her of her energy.

I could feel her suffering. It was more than I could stand.

My hand slid from her breast to her throat. I tilted back her head, exposing the frail skin of her neck, as ghastly white as the rest of her. The self-restraint faded away, until only my passion and love for her remained. My passion, like Bill's passion, would allow me to force her. It would permit me to be blind to her desires.

I sank my fangs into her throat as gently as I could.

Even in her sleep, likely pumped full of medication, she whimpered.

There was but a spark of life within her when I tore into my own flesh, my fangs stained with her blood, and pushed my wrist between her lips. I tipped back her head so that she would have to swallow it. When the wound closed, I cut open a second one and continued to feed her.

She sputtered and choked, and reluctantly, she swallowed. Her eyes never opened. Never once did she look at me. I might have stopped if she had.

The heart monitor began to sing as she crashed toward death. I bent to kiss her mouth, licking her wet lips clean. The emergency team of doctors and nurses careened into the room. They were surprised to see me, and quickly pushed me out the door. I went willingly.

I stood outside the door, and leaned against the wall. I would offer to take her body myself.

I would not let her rise alone.

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**Mortality**

_Eric_

I could not sleep. Insomnia is only possible in a vampire as old as I. Once, in a conversation with Sophie Anne, I learned that she and Andre would often stay up for days at a time, meditating or reading, talking or making love. They did not require sleep or nourishment. They could just be. It was a different way to live.

I walked back down the hall from whence I had come, away from the green-walled vampire waiting room where Pam and Bill slept. The day shift had begun, and the night staff stumbled through the brightly lit hallways toward their beds. It was just past dawn, and no one was quite awake.

I slipped into her room, undetected and undisturbed.

The isolated room was dark but for the small panel of colored lights that indicated her status. A heart monitor beeped methodically, noting the slow progress of the blood in her veins. She was as I had left her, hours ago. Her skin was bare to the waist. A thick plastic tube stuck out unnaturally from her side as though the weapon that had wounded her remained lodged in her chest. Two more slender tubes extended from her nose, pushing oxygen into her deflated lung.

I stood over her and placed a hand upon her breast, over the place where her heart struggled to give her life.

She seemed to bleed pain, and it tore at my insides.

Why had she refused me? Why had I allowed her to make the choice for or against her own survival? Was she not mine? Did I not owe her my protection?

It had been a long time since I had asked myself a question that I could not answer.

The sudden revelation of her blue irises startled me. She blinked, and then blinked a second time. Her pupils shrank and then grew again in size as she adjusted to the light. I had no doubt she could see me.

She could feel me.

"Eric," she croaked. Her tongue was dry, and her voice was hoarse. I could hear her chapped skin crackle.

"Sookie," I exhaled, as if I had been holding my breath for a millennium. I reached up from her heart to stroke her damp hair. She was perspiring.

"Everything hurts," she whimpered in a small, pathetic voice.

I could feel a new wave of pain expand through her. She swallowed the small amount of saliva in her mouth. I bent at the waist to kiss her forehead.

"Rest, my love. It won't hurt for much longer."


End file.
